Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer, and thank you, Deputy Minister, for your statement, and this is something I welcome as a step in the right direction. There's a sentence in the statement that causes me some concern. You said that during the pandemic care workers had started to receive the broader recognition they deserve for the important role that they play in providing care and support for those who need it most. That's true, of course, for the public in general, that there is now an enhanced understanding of the importance of the sector, but there's never any excuse for a Government only now to be waking up, during a pandemic, to the value of this sector, and that's why I'm so frustrated that it's taken a pandemic for us to get to this point where there is proper recognition starting to be shown in terms of their wage level.

There is something that you can do. Yes, it does have to be done cautiously. I would like to see the process happening far more quickly than I have seen outlined by the Deputy Minister today, but, yes, there are steps that need to be taken. One thing that the Government could do would be that when changes are introduced in the appropriate manner, that it would be backdated to include elements of the pandemic when care workers have gone way beyond what anyone could have expected of them in caring for the most vulnerable people.

Why propose the real living wage rather than the £10? It's not just us and the Conservative Party; Unison have recommended that £10 should be the figure. Is there a reason? Because you're getting close to it—£9.50, I think, is the figure now. Why pitch this at that lower level when there has been a lot of work done on this, including by the relevant trade unions, to decide what the level should be? Let's be honest; £10 an hour isn't close to being enough either.

It's not just salary levels that are important. Far too large a percentage of the workforce are on zero-hours contracts. We in Plaid Cymru have brought forward motions time and time again, asking you, 'Please, tackle this issue and prevent the use of these zero-hours contracts within this sector.' But the Government has chosen to reject those proposals. Is it your intention now, along with this proposal of a salary increase, to pursue that issue too?

And on the the bonus, finally, I agree with the Conservative spokesperson that the Welsh Government dealt with the issue of the bonus in a shambolic manner, if truth be told, and that the ducks should have been in a row before announcements were made, and we know how much delay there was because of that. But it was the Conservative Treasury, ultimately, that failed to deal with the issue in the serious manner it deserved and to find a solution so that those problems could be resolved. And one problem that is raised time and time again by me and others on these benches is the people who have missed out on universal credit as they've been offered that bonus. Is that something that you are still trying to tackle, including the possibility of increasing the bonus for those who have lost out on benefits as a result?